The people of this world were so close to God, they often became Him in their dreams. While awake, they achieved feats of brilliance in art, philosophy, technology, enterprise, to greater and greater extents every year. Where darkness loomed, they showed light, revealing sinister creatures that sought to end them should they misstep to the shadows, and executing them with efficiency and creativity.
Time rang on.
The most rare and fantastic skill that these people summoned from themselves was the ability to adapt, which, born from their sharp wit and sheer determination, was combined with a bestowed spontaneity. This broad talent allowed them to change course, methods, mindsets, thereby constantly moving along with the world to maintain their place as its masters. No one considered a finite end to their tenure, for any apparent end was only an opportunity for rebirth with their unconstrained talents, so long as they cared to use them.
Time rang on and on.
Time was ringing, ringing, a cacophony of movement that grew in magnitude so slowly no one bent their ear to it as they built onward and upward - endless in their power. They dreamt with God, they woke with their brothers. They dove deeper into the shadows, slaughtering more and more ghouls. They built! They produced! And time went clanging, drumming, shrieking on, drawing blood from their very ears, and they paid her no mind! Why should they? Their world and abilities were unparalleled and they had nothing to fear. If anything at all, they deserved rest, they said; not a chattering, wailing bitch causing them injury with its incessant passage. So they took their hard-earned rest: unified in the acknowledgment of what they'd done, appreciation for one another, and unwavering faith in their mastery of their world.
Time howled on.
Our heroes dreamt in vast spaces and awesome colors, one with their God, holding their most loved, humming along with time. She was no bitch, but a songbird, and as they rested their love for her grew. They saw now how time would carry them, how they only needed to rest and allow her. Their world could not possibly have been better.
Time sang on, and men slept in their certainty as she cradled them forward. The shadows, and the ghouls lurking within them, were long forgotten.
These insidious ghosts did not recognize time. They did not care about man's accomplishments. They had not changed at all since their very creation, the vile things. And, gradually emboldened by the newfound quiet, they came in the night to feast.
Time's siren call carried on.
The hateful creatures, the bastards! They held the glimmering, towering world before them in no regard as they tore deeply into its landscape, into its children, into the art of this once infinite world. They snatched people away, cackling, as soft and simple smiles laid undisturbed on the faces of their victims, humming along to time's tune. The dreams of our former heroes twisted and lurched as the wretched things danced on their heads.
Time's musical laugh, gentle and aloof, carried on.
When the people of this world came to wake and looked upon the empty beds of their loved ones, their crumbling structures, their marred artworks, their plagued landscape, they could not bear it. Distorted by the pain of their dreams, each took to the very tools they had used to build this once wonderful place and removed their own eyes. Then, simpering, bleeding, lonely, they called out to time, "Please, let us rest. Take us to a place better than here."
Time sang.
-- Geneva DeCobert is a writer and musician on the run from the academic northeast. She loves making things that entertain her and clear storage in her head. When she isn't doing that, she is spending time with animals.